Over an hour passed before Amelia, Rufus, Cyrus and Saul were able to head into Amelia's office and go over what they had learned.
"I think that we've got more than enough evidence to bring Dumbledore to his bony knees," said Amelia as she went through a list of all the ways that Snape had revealed Dumbledore controlled and manipulated Harry Potter's life. There was everything from controlling his mail to dosing him with potions.
"You realise that every student in that castle is currently dosed to the gills, don't you?" asked Cyrus.
This had been a particularly disturbing fact to learn. The idea that all the students at Hogwarts had, on Dumbledore's orders, been dosed with a potion that would force them to blindly accept what they were told or what they saw without question was utterly vial.
Worse, when asked why Dumbledore thought that he could get away with such an action, Snape had replied "He has done it before, on several occasions."
It was Croaker who replied to Cyrus' question "As distasteful as it is we cannot make that our first priority here. We must first deal with the Order of the Phoenix before Dumbledore gets wind of what we've found out and has them all go to ground."
Despite the fact that her niece was at Hogwarts and was likely under the influence of Dumbledore's little scheme, Amelia took Croaker's side "The potions will wear off in time without regular dosages. With Snape in our hands, Dumbledore has no one to make the potion for him. If this was any other criminal that we were dealing with, I would send a team straight to Hogwarts, but this is Dumbledore that we are dealing with. We need to destroy his power base and hit him with everything that we have."
Rufus pulled out a long sheet of parchment and began reading it before commenting "Well, we had better begin with our own employees. Kingsley Shacklebolt of the Auror Office, Emmeline Vance of the Law Enforcement Patrol, Arthur Weasley of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, his wife Molly and his son William, Sturgis Podmore of the Floo Network Authority and Dedalus Diggle of the Muggle-Worthy Excuse committee all seem like a good place to start."
Amelia nodded and said "You organise raids against them, I'm going after Moody."
"And what about Sirius Black?" asked Cyrus.
"He's hiding behind a Fidelius charm," replied Rufus "There is nothing that we can do for him right now."
Discovering that Sirius Black was innocent of the crimes for which he had been convicted had been a surprise to most of those in that room, but Amelia already knew that little piece of information, having heard it from Harry back in the summer. Until now her hands had been tied on the matter, and until they could get the man into the Ministry to question him, Amelia still had not action that she could take without setting alarm bells ringing within certain circles.
She was also rather reluctant to make a move in the man's favour anyway. Clearly he was one of Dumbledore's men and he had abandoned Harry twice now, once on that fateful Halloween night back in 1981 and again over the summer when he had taken part in the communication block that Dumbledore had imposed upon Harry.
Although she had left Hogwarts School two years before the Marauders had arrived, Amelia had learned plenty about them from her younger brothers, Edgar and Alfred. She had also met Sirius at various points during the two years he had spent in Auror training. She had not found herself liking him then and the higher ups had shared this view, which was why Sirius did not complete his third year at the Auror academy.
She would do what she could for the man when she had the time, but for now the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had bigger fish to fry.
During his meeting with the Head Boy and Head Girl, Dumbledore had taken the time to note down all the names of those students who had been in the room on the seventh floor. Even now, several hours after the bulk of the students had been caught there were seven names unaccounted for, five girls and two boys.
Dumbledore had been scanning the castle on the Marauder's Map for quite some time now, but as yet he had seen nothing to suggest where Pansy Parkinson, Astoria Greengrass, Natalie McDonald, Katie Bell, Luna Lovegood, Stewart Ackerly or Kevin Whitby had hidden themselves.
He had Filch and several members of the Order searching the secret passageways out of the castle in the hopes that the wayward students were hiding just beyond the edges of the map, but so far they had found nothing.
His eyes scanned the grounds again and this time he spotted two things that brought a large smile to his face. He turned around as addressed two of the Professors who were in the room with him and the captured students.
"Minerva, Nymphadora, it seems that Kevin Whitby and Stewart Ackerly have secluded themselves away within the Quidditch changing rooms and Luna Lovegood and Natalie McDonald are using the stands around the Quidditch Pitch to hide themselves. Kindly go out and retrieve them, and do be quick as the girls appear to have young Mr Potter with them."
Tonks scowled at the use of her first name but followed Professor McGonagall from the room.
"You're not going to get away with this!" said Susan.
Dumbledore smiled patronisingly at her and replied "Quite the contrary, my dear girl. The Ministry of Magic is soon going to become too busy to worry about what I do within my own castle."
Susan felt a chill go down her spin and Hannah shuddered next to her. The old man's words did not bode well.
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